State Owes Tax Refunds To 180,000

July 11, 1985|By Robert Davis.

About 180,000 Illinois state income-tax refund checks still have not been sent out by the state, and on Monday the state will begin paying up to 13 percent annual interest on the amounts due, a state spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Helen Adorjan, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Revenue, said the number of tax refund checks not sent out is about the same as last year at this time, in spite of a change in the computer software system that gave the department about a two week delay in starting the process this year.

Each year, she said, about 4.6 million state income-tax returns are filed in Illinois. Of those, about 60 percent are entitled to tax refunds averaging about $78.11 each.

But some of those taxpayers ask that the refund amount be credited to the next year`s tax liability.

In other cases, the taxpayers use the tax form checkoff to give their refunds to charitable causes listed on the return.

Adorjan said that some of the 180,000 tax refunds pending are owed to taxpayers whose forms came in late or who incorrectly filled out their forms. The revenue department was waiting Wednesday for Gov. James Thompson to sign appropriation bills recently passed by the General Assembly.

When the appropriation bills are signed, the revenue department will send authorization to the state comptroller`s office, which then will send out the final state income-tax refund checks, she said.

If the checks are not sent out by Monday, taxpayers will receive interest on the outstanding amount dating to April 15.

The interest rate was 13 percent annually, but on July 1 the interest rate dropped to 11 percent annually, Adorjan said.